Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Classifying Political Similarity Of Twitter Users, William K. Paustian Jul 2015

Classifying Political Similarity Of Twitter Users, William K. Paustian

Computer Science Summer Fellows

The emergence of large scale social networks has led to research in approaches to classify similar users on a network. While many such approaches use data mining techniques, recent efforts have focused on measuring the similarity of users using structural properties of the underlying graph representing the network. In this paper, we identify the Twitter followers of the 2016 presidential candidates and classify them as Democrat, Republican or Bipartisan. We did this by designing a new approach to measuring structural similarity, PolRANK. PolRANK computes the similarity of a pair of users by accounting for both the number of candidates they …


The Spectacle Of Black Violence: Historicizing Worldstarhiphop.Com, Caylon Fowlkes Jul 2015

The Spectacle Of Black Violence: Historicizing Worldstarhiphop.Com, Caylon Fowlkes

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Have you ever watched, and possibly laughed, at videos of Blacks fighting? You’re not the only one. Worldstarhiphop.com was created in 2005; it is an online hub for “everything” in regards to hip hop culture. This includes sports highlights and new rap artists as well as “crazy fights” mainly between Black people. The videos are primarily made by Blacks and exploited by many. The purpose of this project is to investigate the attraction society has to the behavior of black youth. There are many things that contribute to this phenomenon of violence occurring among black youth. I have chosen to …


The Association Of Different Types Of Bullying With The Mental Health Of Children And Teens From The United States, France, And Canada, Christina Fisher Jul 2015

The Association Of Different Types Of Bullying With The Mental Health Of Children And Teens From The United States, France, And Canada, Christina Fisher

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Bullying continues to trouble youths around the world, sometimes with devastating effects for victims’ mental health. This suggests an ongoing need for awareness, intervention and tolerance for everyone involved. This study, a literature review, explored the extent of these mental health effects found in 50 studies of victims, bullies, and bully-victims, those who are victims of bullying and who also bully others, in the United States, France, and Canada (Willard, 2007). Particular attention was paid to the impact that gender, age, ethnicity, and the LGBTQ community had on researchers’ findings. Findings show that 25.9% to 33% of students in these …


It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's...Cultural Anxiety? Using Detective Comics' Three Biggest Heroes To Identify And Explore Cultural Anxieties As Depicted Through Television, Jonathan Vander Lugt Apr 2015

It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's...Cultural Anxiety? Using Detective Comics' Three Biggest Heroes To Identify And Explore Cultural Anxieties As Depicted Through Television, Jonathan Vander Lugt

Media and Communication Studies Honors Papers

This collection of essays uses the mythic nature of superheroes to examine and discuss specific cultural anxieties as they’re navigated and alleviated in superhero television texts. First, I examine the way that anxiety over feminism and the women’s rights movement manifested itself in Wonder Woman, the 70s television series starring Lynda Carter. Next, I use Smallville and its depictions of a teenaged Superman to explore its handling of anxieties over the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Finally, I performed a content analysis of six different series of Batman cartoons to examine the way they respond to national concerns over …


A New Role For Student Media: College Newspapers And The Crisis In Journalism, Rachel Brown Apr 2015

A New Role For Student Media: College Newspapers And The Crisis In Journalism, Rachel Brown

Media and Communication Studies Honors Papers

At its core, the goal of journalism is to provide the necessary information to its public to promote democratic participation. Within this sphere, the work of college newspapers is to provide this public service to a university audience. However, as professional newspapers struggle to survive rapidly changing conditions in the industry, college newspapers are assuming responsibility for news that once fell strictly under the jurisdiction of commercial news organizations. As these mutually-influencing transformations occur, academics and media scholars alike are questioning whether college newspapers are structurally capable of handling the responsibilities of a professional newspaper and if so, how existing …


Students Talk About Gender And Race Within The Classroom, Amanda Lucock Apr 2015

Students Talk About Gender And Race Within The Classroom, Amanda Lucock

Media and Communication Studies Honors Papers

This study attempts to gain a better understanding of students’ experiences and perceptions of conversations about gender and race in the classroom. Specifically, this study focuses on issues and concerns that arise in the course of talking about gender and race. There were over 20 hours of classes observed, eight one-on-one in-depth interviews, and over three hours of recorded classroom conversations. Through my analysis, I found that students used several devices, including storytelling and attacking, to speak about these taboo issues within the classroom.


Survival Of The Toughest: An Ethnographic Study Of A Collegiate Wrestling Team, Sydney A. Dodson-Nease Apr 2015

Survival Of The Toughest: An Ethnographic Study Of A Collegiate Wrestling Team, Sydney A. Dodson-Nease

Media and Communication Studies Honors Papers

The purpose of this ethnographic study of the Vespey College Wrestling is to obtain a better understanding of the wrestlers’ perspectives on cultural behaviors and norms that appear to oppose masculinity. This ethnographic study is based on observational fieldnotes I have collected and interviews I have conducted over a five month period as a participant observer of the wrestling team. This report includes an introduction to the study, a review of literature pertaining to masculinity and wrestling, a methods section, an ethnographic description, and a conclusion that discusses the implications of the results and suggestions for further research. Future research …


Living Proof: Autobiographical Political Argument In We Are The 99 Percent And We Are The 53 Percent, Doron Taussig Jan 2015

Living Proof: Autobiographical Political Argument In We Are The 99 Percent And We Are The 53 Percent, Doron Taussig

Media and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

People often cite life experiences as evidence in political arguments, though personal experience is far from generalizable. How do these arguments work? In this paper, I consider the rhetorical dynamics of “autobiographical political argument” by examining We are the 99 Percent and We are the 53 Percent, two blogs that use autobiographical stories to make discursive points. I argue that these autobiographical appeals efficiently use all three of Aristotle’s persuasive “proofs”—logos (logic), ethos (credibility), and pathos (emotion). Then I show that many of the blogs’ stories focus on “redemption,” a theme personality psychologists have found emphasized in the narrative …